Tag: Till We Have Faces Quotes

“The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, ‘Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.’

A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

CS Lewis; Till We Have Faces

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Can I be honest with you? I’m not a good person. A decent person, maybe. I don’t indulge in any illicit substance, I’ve not committed a hate crime and the only thing I’ve ever stolen was Bobby Reynold‘s Superman action-figure; I took out of his sandbox, one pubescent summer day after he refused to share his fruit rollup with me (which is to say that the twit had it coming). So I’m a decent person, maybe- but certainly not a good one.

For example, this past week we travelled across the country to visit some family before Christmas. My wife, ever the economical guru, managed to find us the cheapest flight possible- meaning it left at zero dark thirty.

Now a good person, a good husband, would’ve been thankful for herfinancial prudence. Heck, a good person might even be allowed a few grumbles at first, but certainly wouldn’t have complained the entire trip to the airport and certainly wouldn’t have used manipulative guilt (“I sure hope sleep deprivation doesn’t spark migraines… and did you hear scientists have linked it to pneumonia?”) to make her buy him a donut at the terminal. No,a good man wouldn’t even consider these things.

At times I look in the mirror. Have you- and excuse me for asking so bluntly- ever really looked at yourself in a mirror? Have you taken in your eyes, the color of the line where your iris meets the pupil, the depth of the whites around them, the twitch and twitter of countless muscles pulling them to and fro? I’ll wager you haven’t- few of us do. And the thing is when I look at my eyes, I mean really look into them, I couldn’t tell you what I see. I want to call it a face- for that is the only name I know. But what I see is beyond faceness: in a way it’s the absence of a face- it’s an intangible formbut an existent one nonetheless. It’s indescribable, really. Try it, you’ll see.

I think about the afterlife a lot – don’t you? It seems logical that some day I’ll be required to give account, not for mydecency, but for all the not-good I have committed:words spoken in anger, teenage-backseat rendezvous, my potty mouth, that one night with that one(ish) handle of whiskey and, of course,stealing that twit Bobby’s stupid Superman. In this regard, I have much fear and trembling. For I am not good, as we have established.And should my faith in the justice of paradise’s gatekeeper turn out to be even remotely accurate, then I’ve earned my way to an eternity of early morning flights.

It was CS Lewis who once proposed that heaven will be realness beyond our capacity, more than we can bear. And that makes sense- doesn’t it? I mean if you think about eternity- truly contemplate never–endingness, time without a clock-well it’s rather terrifying isn’t it? I’d rather think about anything: tragedy, pain, heartbreak… the notion of having to catch a flight at the butt crack of dawn- I’d rather muse over all these things than think about eternity. I just can’t bear it. Because when I look into my eyes I see no face capable of smiling upon the sun‘s endless rays. And with no face- what hope do I really have? How can we meet the gods face to face, Lewis will later ask, until we have faces?

I suppose it brings us to faith, hope for grace and mercy. Because I have no face- I am not good enough to know one nor am I powerful enough to make it.

And If I make it to the pearly gates, if I’m there when the clouds come down and veil of beauty around us is lifted, I suppose I shall break down weeping- weeping in the simultaneous sadness and joy known only a father on his daughter’s wedding day, or a mother as her child backs down the driveway, car packed to the brim for college- a feeling known to truly loving another, perhaps for the first time. I shall weep and I will beg for a face, a face to smile, a face to laugh, a face to praise and a face to behold the beauty stretching before me into everlasting. I’ll ask for a face not because I’m good; more than ever I shall know I am hardly decent.But I’ll ask because I’m beforethe Good, and if I can only behold it, have the face with which to see it, then nothing shall be lacking in me. And, if He is as wonderful as I believe, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a face. And I shall go my way, into forever.

But not before asking that He makes sure to also give one to Bobby Reynolds. That twit.